POLICE DETECTIVES ARRESTED Miss Roberta Plink on a charge of murder, but she was released when Sergeant William Henry “Snag” Harrison pointed out that there were still twenty-five minutes until the closing credits, proving conclusively that Miss Plink was not the murderer.

Three juveniles were arrested and charged with vandalizing the Wenzell Avenue streetcar overpass. The juveniles claimed that they had permission to paint the overpass as part of a neighborhood mural project, but responding officers reported that the mural was ugly.

A member of city council called 911 to report that his feelings had been hurt by an insensitive editorial in the Dispatch. The Dispatch does not identify victims of bullying.

Miss Elzevira Pockett locked herself out of her 1984 Plymouth Reliant again. She is being held in lieu of $100,000.00 bail.

Police responded to a complaint of disturbing the peace in the 1100 block of Wapping Street. Responding officers found a loud party in progress and were invited in for a few drinks. They had a marvelous time.

Eight members of the Dravosburg Interplanetary Society were arrested on a charge of arson after their attempted manned mission to Mars set fire to the borough building. No one was injured, but the custodian was awfully mad.

The weekly Hilltop District police officers’ pool was won by Officer Elisabetta Frobisher, who correctly guessed that the largest number of arrests in the district this week would be for illegal gambling.

]]> http://drboli.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/dispatch-police-blotter-4/feed/ 1 Dr. Boli http://drboli.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/advertisement-420/ http://drboli.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/advertisement-420/#comments Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:00:49 +0000 drboli http://drboli.wordpress.com/?p=2433 ]]>

From Dr. Boli’s Fables for Children Who Are Too Old to Believe in Fables.

ONCE IN THE Catskill Mountains of upstate New York there was a tortoise, and he was really rather speedy as tortoises go. And at the same time there was a hair, growing on the chin of one of those lazy Dutch settlers so abundant in those parts, champion nappers who could snore for decades at a stretch.

“You know,” said the hair, “I’m just about the fastest thing there is. In a year, I’ll grow down to this old Knickerbocker’s kneecap.”

The tortoise was quite surprised to hear an individual hair speaking in reasonably good English, and was even more surprised to discover that he could speak English in reply. Apparently he had never tried it before, and the ability had sat latent in him all the years of his long reptilian life.

“You’re not as fast as all that,” the tortoise answered. “For a hair, you may be speedy, but a zippy tortoise like me could run rings around you and then dash off so fast all you’d see would be smoking tracks.”

“Oh, really?” asked the hair with a sarcastic twirl. “Well, then, let’s just see who’s the fastest. You see that ankle way down yonder, the one you get to if you head straight past the kneecap and keep going on down the shin? I challenge you to a race. The first one to get to old Van der Donck’s left ankle wins.”

“You’re on,” said the tortoise; and at a prearranged signal they both started out, the tortoise stomping along with all his might and the hair growing like a summer weed. For some time the tortoise clearly had the better of it, and indeed he had nearly reached the kneecap while the hair was still struggling to get past the collarbone.

But then, after having slept only a few weeks, the lazy Dutch colonist awoke from his abbreviated nap, picked himself up, and started walking, and never stopped walking until he got to Albany, where he had some business to attend to. The tortoise followed at a mad pace (by tortoise standards), and for all I know he may still be trudging down the road to Albany, racing at top tortoise speed toward the long-vanished ankle. Meanwhile, the Dutch settler, taking to town life, decided to shave his beard, the clean-shaven look having come into fashion. Every morning the hair must begin its own journey afresh, and after many years is still not any closer to the ankle.

Thus there is no way of telling which party will win the race, and the moral of this fable must remain in limbo until the outcome of the race is finally decided.

BOZAR THE CLOWN will soon be returning from his sabbatical. He has been writing a monograph on the architectural works of Paul Philippe Cret, which will be adapted as a Saturday-morning children’s show on Dumont next fall.

The rumors that Eddie Murphy would star in a remake of Cocteau’s Le Sang d’un poète, previously dismissed as false, have now been confirmed. Advance advertisements are already appearing in trade journals with the promotional tag line “Talk to the Hand.”

Miss Una Corda, the notoriously shy concert pianist, will be touring the great concert halls of the Northeast this winter with the Edgewood Symphony Orchestra. The public will not be admitted to the performances.

Flash! What prominent local judge was seen tête-à-tête with a very attractive young lady in the back room of Sid’s in Woods Run? Your roving reporter will never tell, but he has several unpaid parking tickets that he presumes have now been rendered irrelevant.

Members of the Italian Sausage Society of Bloomfield were flabbergasted to learn that puckish pranksters in their own staff had slipped kielbasa into their spaghetti dinner. Mrs. de Facto is said to be laid up in bed recovering from the shock.

Miss Diana Smoulder, the ravishing heartthrob of the hurdy-gurdy, has pulled out of the monthly Lemming Aid concerts after a heated dispute with the promoters. Sources say the board of directors was unhappy with her recent public statements on the sensitive vole issue.

The Great Blando is said to have eaten all his pudding yesterday, at which his minders were moved to declare that he had been a very good boy.

Found on a Tag Inside a Discarded Shirt Hanging from a Chain-Link Fence in the Back Streets of the South Side.

THE LATEST IN the historical detective series that has taken the world of botany by storm:

“We are proud to recommend Dr. Torrey’s newest book to all readers looking for a mystery story without the cheap sensationalism that usually plagues the genre.”

——Methodist Inquisitor.

“The character of Chenopodium glaucum is vividly drawn and remarkably true to life.”

——Hillsborough Whig.

“We regret to inform you that your manuscript does not meet our current needs.”

——Doubleday.